


Follow Where You Lead

by EchoSilverWolf



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: A LOT of Angst, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Depression, Epistolary, Grief/Mourning, John's blog, M/M, One-Sided Sherlock Holmes/John Watson, POV John Watson, Post-Episode: s02e03 The Reichenbach Fall, Post-Reichenbach, Sort Of, Suicidal Ideation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-06
Updated: 2017-12-06
Packaged: 2019-02-11 07:19:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,255
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12930288
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EchoSilverWolf/pseuds/EchoSilverWolf
Summary: "There's stuff that you wanted to say...but didn't say it. Say it now"





	Follow Where You Lead

**Author's Note:**

> Betaed by libetdawn
> 
>  
> 
> *Trigger Warning*  
> Heavy Angst. Suicidal attempts are mentioned and described.

  **The Personal Blog of Dr. John H. Watson**

 

**_Settings: Private - only owner can see these posts_ **

I don’t even know _why_ I am writing this. I suppose, in a way, it’s the closest I’ll come to speaking to you again.

I'm just so bloody tired, Sherlock.

So tired of being alone, of being here - without you. In this place we called a home. Where there is nothing that does not remind me of you. The papers, the books, Christ, even the dust - it's all you. Who you were, what we did, how we lived - even your smell is still here; lingering-haunting me.

The flat is empty without you. Empty and so so quiet. Amazing that even in a strop, even when you were silently sulking - you were still loud. You took up all the space in the room. Now there...it’s just me, and I can’t…I...It’s just too damn quiet.

I am…lost...so very lost. Trapped by all this guilt, emptiness, anger...regret. What's left of you here, I sometimes find myself wishing I could rid myself of for good. Or maybe I don't. Maybe I need it. The painful reminders. Maybe I need it - to remember - my way of keeping a bit of you here. A part of you that is mine alone. No matter how much I want to forget. Either way, the memories of you, muddled up with the morbid thoughts, they just won’t leave me alone.

It has been months. Months, Sherlock. Months of replaying the last moments of your life and the nightmare of seeing the person I lo-

(Fuck, I can't even type the words it seems) the person I cared about most, lying crumpled and broken on the pavement is destroying me still.

Everytime I close my eyes - I see yours. So hauntingly beautiful in life, and so utterly empty in death. No matter how many days go by. I am not sure I will ever forget. I suppose there is only so much that time truly erases.

I'm not proud of all the times I've cried myself to sleep, or woken up mid-scream. I am even less proud of how many times I have drunk myself to the bottom of a bottle hoping not to wake up. Or, how many times I have pressed cold steel to my temple or my lips, ready to be done with it, with all of this, never strong enough to pull the trigger...yet...

I am completely and utterly alone. I have distanced myself from everyone, avoided their pity.

“Alone is what I have,” but that was you, wasn't ? Not me. I have never dealt well alone. Not before you. More so after you brought life and color back to my broken black and white world. No. Alone is what I am _left_ with.

“You machine,” I know I  can never forgive myself the last words I spoke to your face, to my best friend. You were, Sherlock, ‘course you were. You were my best friend. Possibly a bit more than that, if I am honest. Just one more regret. Not telling you, letting you die, without ever knowing you were needed...that I...but I couldn’t do it. Seems I still can’t.

Now it is too late.

I'd give anything to grab your hand and feel the thrumming rhythm of a heartbeat beneath warm skin. Alive. To erase the memory of a limp, and pulse-less wrist under my fingers. _Dead._

I miss your manic ranting, your rapid fire deductions at a crime scene, your brilliant mind. I miss your massive sulks, our stupid rows, body parts in the crisper...I miss it all. I miss...

You used to captivate me, Sherlock. From the start. You intrigued me; amazed me with your mind, your gifts, your light - with your companionship, your kindness (you’d deny that bit), your comfort - the parts of you only I got to see.  You were the best and the wisest man, and you saved me from the life I had before. You gave me a reason to live when I had none. You never knew that - I never said...or maybe you figured it out the moment we met. I should have thanked you, just once...I should have let you know just how much...

Now, the memory of your face haunts me - takes over my dreams, and my nightmares.

The memory of your voice? Has erased any remaining sanity I have held onto.

What do I need to do to make it stop? To truly heal and move on? Because I don’t honestly know. I can't...I can't do this alone. Not again. You saved me from myself, and now here I am again and I'm not sure this time there IS a way to be saved? Too many memories. Too much hurt. Too many words I can't make myself speak, or even put down in writing. Doing that, it feels too real. Too raw. Too much. They are things I should have said when you were here.

For a while I had hoped. I hoped and wanted to believe it wasn’t real. That it was all “just a magic trick”.

I looked for you.

I've tried so hard to tell myself that you're really gone. That you aren't coming back. Sometimes i still hope, find myself _still_ looking for you.  Every time I hear imaginary footfall on the stairs. Every creak in the floor. Every time I hear you in my head. It's like you're here - but not. Even when the imaginary you has been speaking to me, I always wake up knowing that I've been alone all along.

No amount of wishing will bring you back. No amount of ‘should have saids’ or ‘might have beens’ will ever be enough. All the things I wish you had known. The things I never said-the things i _should_ have said…

How you never did figure it out is beyond me. It had to have been there; on my face, in my eyes, in every ‘brilliant’ or ‘fantastic’ or ‘amazing’ I ever blurted out. It was so obvious to everyone...except you. Maybe you would have scoffed, laughed at the sentiment, at me romanticizing what may or may not have been there. Yet, maybe you would have looked at me with one of your more gentle expressions. The open, vulnerable ones, the ones that showed fondness. 

Maybe we could've been...more - but now we can't...ever. I will forever hold that regret with all my other guilt, Sherlock...you should have known - I should have said it.

Such a small thing yet so utterly terrifying. Those words I meant to say and never have. 

Maybe I need to. While I still can. Here. Where it’s safe. I should tell you how much I ...that I...that I cared for you...no. No. You knew that. I know you did. But, It was more than caring, yeah? So much more. It was...it was _love_ . I _loved_ you. There. I've done it. I've put the words out there...I even _spoke_ them, to feel them on my tongue...the first and only time I’ve done that.

Not that it matters. Not that you can see or hear them. Too little too late.

This is why I can't let go, can’t move on, Sherlock.

I always followed you, sometimes blindly, wherever you led me. This should be no different...

If someday someone finds this...this is why…

It's what people do, don’t they?

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**Author's Note:**

> *This was originally a posted fic that I removed. I felt it could be done better. I hope I achieved that.*


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